Uploaded November 2022 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
StoryMaker is an extension of PBS' Student Reporting Labs. It's a civic media site that helps students both understand and create media as well as think through civic issues. Teachers can select skill-focused lessons on things like conducting interviews or using cameras. These functional lessons help build students’ digital storytelling ability. Teachers can then have students move on to projects (like the Student Journalism Challenge) that push students to develop and use different production (e.g., principles of photography) and journalistic (e.g., fact-checking) skills. Some lessons can be done in one or two class periods while others are projects designed to last several weeks. There's a handy resource library teachers can use to find activities with the right topic, challenge level, and duration. There's also a range of topic-based starting points on the homepage teachers can use to kick things off that fit with their curriculum.
Best of all: Since the site's connected with PBS NewsHour, students' content has the potential to be shared with a national audience.
For more, check out our review of StoryMaker: commonsense.org/education/reviews/storymaker
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StoryMaker is an extension of PBS' Student Reporting Labs. It's a civic media site that helps students both understand and create media as well as think through civic issues. Teachers can select skill-focused lessons on things like conducting interviews or using cameras. These functional lessons help build students’ digital storytelling ability. Teachers can then have students move on to projects (like the Student Journalism Challenge) that push students to develop and use different production (e.g., principles of photography) and journalistic (e.g., fact-checking) skills. Some lessons can be done in one or two class periods while others are projects designed to last several weeks. There's a handy resource library teachers can use to find activities with the right topic, challenge level, and duration. There's also a range of topic-based starting points on the homepage teachers can use to kick things off that fit with their curriculum.
Best of all: Since the site's connected with PBS NewsHour, students' content has the potential to be shared with a national audience.
For more, check out our review of StoryMaker: commonsense.org/education/reviews/storymaker
---------
Sign up for our weekly newsletter: commonsense.org/education/newsletter
Follow us on Twitter:
twitter.com/commonsenseed
Join us on Facebook: facebook.com/CommonSenseEd
Check us out on Pinterest: pinterest.com/commonsenseedu
